


speechless again

by claptondodance (orea_domina)



Category: American Actor RPF, Josh Hutcherson - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-02
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-10 05:48:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/782513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orea_domina/pseuds/claptondodance





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

> _“I like both athletic girls and girly girls. It depends on their personality. I like girls who can go out and play sports with me and throw the football around, but you don’t want a girl who’s too much tougher than you. I like brainy girls who can respond to what I’m saying.” **-Josh Hutcherson**_

 

 

It has been two months since the world ended.

As far as I know, everyone I know is gone. As far as I know, everything is gone.

My name is Roxie. I am twenty-three years old. I am in the place that used to be Hollywood, California. As far as I know I am completely alone, because everyone I’ve met has been either dead, undead or dying.

I run through my checklist.

Water, check. I have two camelbacks. Rule of threes. Three: minutes without air, days without water, and weeks without food. I found that fact in a survival handbook that I scoured in the days when I was still hiding and scrambling and coming to mental terms with what was happening. What had happened. The things I’d had to do.

Knives, check. Always have at least three sharp objects on you at all times. My favorite: hip, ankle and undisclosed.

Pack, check. Duct tape, toilet paper, food, can opener, extra clothes, space blanket, fire kit, binoculars, lock cutter, leatherman, and first aid kit. I found a field surgery kit once and besides duct tape and that hatchet I lost a week ago, it’s been very useful.

I snap the buckles on my pack across my chest and prepare to leave the small building I've been using as a shelter for the last few nights. Used to be a chinese restaurant, I think. The kind with dirty corners and a lot of sugar in their food. But there's nothing now except the four walls and a few cheap decorations. All the food was picked clean a long time ago.

I can't stay long anywhere, if you stay too long they eventually find you. Smell you out. It's morning and I have the day to find another place to stay. Places to avoid, low ground: no visibility. High buildings: no escape. I once spent three nights in an overturned Chevy Suburban because I was desperate. And lucky. Nothing came by except a few stray dogs and one loan ambler dragging a broken leg. I took her out with a knife to the eye before she even saw it coming.

I walk for the better part of the day. It’s still hot, and the world still stinks. Hot pavement and rotting flesh. I’m tired of the smell of my own sweat. But I don't pick up any new supplies or find anything useful. I’m exhausted and I just want to rest but I have to keep moving. I have to find a place to stop before dark. I miss my hatchet. The machete is fine but it’s a little big for me and lacks the weight of a blunt instrument as well as a blade. I miss the heaviness, even though it was tiring sometimes. The machete is practical and artful though. It’s starting to grow on me.

Around noon I’m blindsided by a glare and almost miss the baby with the missing leg at my feet. But I hear the gurgle in its tiny throat just in time. I lop off its head before it can get any of its teeth or nails into me. A month ago I would have cried. But I’ve been through what seems like years of shit since then. It’s been a long fucking time. Years, in zombie era time. It’s a new age. I have no more concept of time anymore. I don’t keep track of days. But the weather is starting to change from summer to fall. That’s as accurate as I want to get right now. Soon I’ll need warmer clothes and maybe some kind of padding for the colder ground. But it’s LA. It’s not like it’s going to snow.

I'm in a better part of town today. I imagine that famous people might have lived in a neighborhood like this. I might check to see if there's food left, but there's little chance of that and if someone is lucky enough to be holed up in one of the houses, they might be the type who have panic rooms and guns. But the thought of finding some good shampoo is almost worth the risk. I sigh and keep walking, remembering the silky smooth sweetness of hair washed in water pure enough to drink. What a waste. My mind wanders, dangerously, but I’m too tired to keep it in check.

Out of the corner of my eye I catch a sudden movement. I hear a snap. I move slowly, because if it's undead it'll go for quick movement or the stink of a live body and fresh meat. I check quickly behind me and back in through an open gate and behind a wall, unsheathing my knife from my belt.

And run straight into a body.


	2. | LA | OCT

My mind accelerates to light speed like someone has floored the gas pedal on the Millenium Falcon.  

Something is wrong.

There wasn’t a body there a second ago. There was nothing there a second ago.

Arms wrap around me, one around my torso pinning my knife arm and tucking the end of what feels like a gun into my ribs, one over my mouth.

Something is very wrong.

This body is warm. And zombies don’t use guns.

In a million years, I’d rather be eaten to death by dead people than held as someone’s sex or breeding slave for who knows how long, or raped to death over a few days or weeks. A million. fucking. years.

“Shhhhhhh...” a voice says in my ear, and the adrenaline suddenly coursing through my veins is like a donkey kick to the head. In a split second I’m ready to smash his insole and jam my knife into any available surface with the few inches of leeway I have. He can’t make me drop my knife, it’s tethered to my arm. Nothing like losing a good knife in some undead asshole’s skull when a swift yank with your wrist can pull it free.

“Shhhhhh!” the voice says again, more urgently. “I’m trying to help you.”

Fuck that. I can help myself.

“I’m going to let go of your mouth. Don’t scream or they’ll hear you. I swear to god, I am trying to help.”

I squirm and he tightens his grip, jamming the gun into my side. I can feel the heat and the general build of his body pressed against mine. He’s thin, wiry. But strong. Without warning, my body responds to his proximity with excitement. A warm flush in my cheeks and... other places.

“Or we can do it the hard way,” he huffs. “Look to your left, down the street about 500 yards. Right where you would be right now if I hadn’t stopped you. Under the tree next to the stop sign.”

Fuck. Rapers. Four of them. I would have run straight into them. My head was obviously not in the game today. It was a scout group, but they were heavily armed and I would have been outnumbered. I freeze, the adrenaline in my veins turning to liquid hydrogen.

“Okay. Are you on board now?” he whispers. “We need to get out of their range. I’m going to let go of your mouth. Scream and I’ll shoot you in the head before they can get to you. But don’t. fucking. scream. Okay?” I nod and he lets go.

I use the momentum and his weight to spin him. I twist his wrist quickly and he drops his gun as I complete the move and take his arm up and into his scapula by the wrist, pushing him up against the wall. I bring my knife to his throat with my other hand. He’s on the short side, but wide in the shoulders and compact. Like a wrestler. One of those solid fuckers who is much, much stronger than he looks. Still, he’s not the only one with the element of surprise going for him. And he’s not the only one who is stronger than they look.

“Who the fuck are you?” I growl in his ear.

“Hey! Hey! Take it easy! I just saved your ass!” he hisses.

“Yeah, I’m familiar with how people can be “friendly” these days.”

“Well, you’re doing pretty well at that. I swear, I just wanted to offer you shelter. I have food. And water.”

“Why?” There was only one reason I could think of. Okay, maybe two. Or five.

“It’s going to be night soon. You know what happens at night. You won’t be safe.”

I did. And it wasn’t good. He went limp in my grasp, no longer resisting. I let him go, but I hold my knife out defensively.

“How far?

“Not very far. Right through there.” He nods toward the top of the hill.

“Is it your house?”

“No, but the people who were here before don’t, uh, need it anymore. So kind of. I guess.” He picks up his weapon from where he dropped it and quickly tucks it into his belt. “Come on. Quick.”

We waste no more time. I follow him through a small suburban labyrinth to a house that sits on relatively high ground, with an escape route out the back. It has a high fence, probably to keep out the paparazzi. But now it serves as a more than adequate physical barrier. He secures the gates and takes me inside, past the makeshift cisterns and the plywooded windows.

Once we’re inside he visibly relaxes, his chest deflating and refilling. He shakes his head from side to side, cracking his neck loudly, rubbing the thick ropes of muscles absentmindedly.

“Hi,” he says, holding out his hand and grinning, obviously relieved that 1) we’re alive and 2) I haven’t killed him yet. “I’m Josh.”

I sheath my knife in my sleeve and don’t take his hand. “Roxie.”

“Still suspicious?” he says, dusting his hand off on his jeans, like that’s what he meant to do all along. “Yeah. I would be too. Um, let me show you around.”

“Hold on.” I stand my ground, in reach of the door. “Why did you do that? Why did you help me? Bring me here?”

He sinks into a chair and shrugs.

“I don’t know. I thought you were going to get into trouble, and I just... it seemed like the right thing to do. I couldn’t watch them take you.”

I frown. “How do you know I couldn’t have taken them? Or that I wouldn’t have seen them in time?”

“I’m assuming you can take care of yourself pretty well, since you’re alone and alive. But you looked tired and distracted, and like I said. I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if they took you and I could have helped.”

“You would have killed yourself?” I scoff.

“No. But it would always bother me. Trust me. I know that it would.” Something in his voice makes me believe him.

“Okay. You’re quite a gentleman. Are you here by yourself?” I remember that I’m not the only one who has reason to distrust people as he re-adjusts his gun in his belt and rests his hand casually on the grip.

“Yeah.”

“How long?”

“Since it all started. My family--” he chokes back on something hard, clearing his throat loudly, “--is in Kentucky. Or they were when this all started. My friends were there too. I have no idea where anyone else is. Even my dog was there.” His head sinks back into the chair and he rubs his eyes with his non-gun hand. “How about you?”

“My family didn’t make it. I don’t know where my friends ended up. I was at work when we got the evacuation orders. I went to my parent’s house but...” my throat tightens and I look around uncomfortably.

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too. At least you have hope your family is out there somewhere.”

He nods and sits up, giving me a long, hollow look. Like it might just be worse to not know. 

 

 

“Do you want to sit down?" he says quietly. "I have a shower rigged up in the back with rainwater. There’s not much in there right now, we need some rain, bad. But it’s enough to wash up a little bit.”

“Oh my god. A shower.”

My face must be priceless, because that’s when I get the first real, genuine laugh I’ve heard in so long it seems like years. I laugh too, but it’s nervous and small and I’m not used to it. It feels as dangerous as throwing a match into a field of dry brush. 

“We should take turns sleeping,” he says. “We could both get some tonight. Sleep I mean,” he backtracks quickly, looking almost panicked. He really doesn’t want to spook me. “That came out wrong,” he grins nervously and sighs. “This place is pretty secure but I haven’t really slept in... I can’t even remember.”

“I know what you mean.” We were both thinking the same thing. The two of us together have a better chance than either of us did alone. If we can learn to trust each other. Especially if he wants to do what I would be water he wants to do.

“Do you want to sleep first?” he asks. “After you shower?”

I don’t know what to even say. I have an idea why he needs me, and it isn’t what I had been afraid of. But isolation does things to your mind, and people turn on a dime these days. And he wanted me to get naked? Not gonna happen. “That’s nice, but--”

“If I wanted to hurt you I would have done it by now.” He removes his hand from his gun and holds it up.

“I know.” The thought of cleaning the gunk and blood and who knows what else out of my hair and off of my skin sounds so good I could cry, but I stuff that away for now.

Instead I set down my pack and take a seat in a plump looking recliner by the door. I pull my knees up and wrap my arms around them. My head falls back, and I close my eyes, just for a minute, I tell myself.

**  
Just for a minute.**


	3. | KY |

Kentucky

****

“Hey, Michelle! What do you think?” Andre steps out of his bedroom and strikes a pose. He is decked out in a Jem t-shirt that he’s knotted at the waist, neon blue leopard print spandex shorts, lilac leg warmers, heavy boots and an authentic vintage Jane Fonda terry cloth headband. 

“Okay, when I said ‘Go pick out some clothes from our closet’ you know I meant Chris’s clothes,” she chuckles, unable to contain the laughter anymore as Andre continues to get his vogue on. “I don’t even remember bringing any of that here. Someone must have decided I wouldn’t miss anything from the deep, dark, should-have-gone-to-charity-in-1987 depths of my closet. The boots are good. Very practical.” She nods towards the steel toed Timberlands he is wearing. “Aren’t you cold in that spandex?”

“No. And I can’t help that I’ve lost weight. My bear-ish figure is going to be all gone soon. No more Big Sexy.” He pats his shrinking belly and frowns. “This zombie apocalypse diet sucks. Fuck low carb. Fuck that paleo shit. Fuck…whatever. I would give anything for some In and Out right now.”

She wags a warning finger. “Oh no, no, no, no you don’t. Do not go there,” she says sternly, then sighs, obviously frustrated. “Damn you, Andre! Now my mouth is watering. You are going to pay for that. Somehow.” Michelle glares at him, trying hard to stay irritated but they're all suffering. And it's hard to stay mad at him. 

“Uh huh. You just try, lady. I’ve got my skull squishers on today,” he grins, stomping his feet.

“‘Squishers?’” she chuckles and starts downstairs when the sound of a weapon firing interrupts the rare light moment.

Andre breaks into a run and flies down the stair ladder behind her.

“Amanda! Connor!” she yells as she picks up a rifle from the impromptu weapons stash by the door. Andre follows quickly with a crossbow. They are out the steel framed door and onto the deck in a matter of seconds.

“What’s happening?”

“Just a straggler,” Connor calls out from the other side of the steel shuttered cabin. They are at their cabin by the lake, the one that only a few people know about. The one that Josh knows to regroup to.

Josh knows because he had it built after Catching Fire came out, partly as a joke, mostly as a family getaway location, definitely as a precaution they hoped they’d never need. Climate change, too many people, not enough resources. The signs were becoming too glaring to ignore.

He commissioned a company that specialized in steel clad cabins on stilts that were designed to be secure while the owners were away. They also happened to function perfectly as a stylish weekend retreat and completely defensible fortress.

 

  


It was much larger than the cabins previously designed by the company. He wanted it to house up to twelve people max, eight comfortably. It had wrap around balconies, the entire building was on slender steel stilts, and it could be completely closed up with steel shutters on a pulley system that closed with one central and very Vernian hand crank wheel. A small tribute to the Journey movies that had helped pay for it.

 

  


The glass was all reinforced with shatterproof film and the only entrance was retractable. There was an underground storage facility that held most of their food and water that could be accessed by hatch, and if absolutely necessary there was a steel tube that could be lowered through the floor of the cabin to dock with the hatch.

Two years of water for eight people and pets and five years of dehydrated food was stored underground and there was a rain catchment system as well as a detachable well pipeline. And if absolutely necessary they were next to a lake. They could live on fish and water for awhile. The roof housed solar panels and wind turbine generators. He’d wanted to build a second cabin for his parents with a retractable walkway, but that had never happened.

They never imagined they’d actually have to use it for the zombie apocalypse.

Andre and Michelle round the corner to where Connor is. Amanda has just arrived from the other side. They all look down at the body on the ground, waiting to see if it has any friends. Most zombies live dead the way they lived as people. Together. They tend to come and go in clumps.

They wait for about ten minutes, weapons drawn and on guard, but nothing happens.

“How’s dad?” Connor asks, noticing Andre’s outfit for the first time, laughing quietly and tipping his chin at the gun-toting spandex-clad friend of the family, who just shrugs and grins. Chris had broken his ankle running away from an unusually silent undead asshole while he was gathering wood for the woodburning stove they cooked with. Luckily it was a clean break and they were able to set it relatively easily. But not painlessly. 

They save their power as much as possible for the things that kept them safe or sane. Laundry. There is a hand laundry system of rolling buckets and a wringer attached to the steel deck but once in awhile they use the pre-plague machines. When there’s enough laundry and the battery banks are full.

They entertain themselves with a once a week movie night. They eat popcorn with dehydrated butter powder and avoid all of Josh’s movies. They pick a song a day from one of their phones, which are nothing more than glorified mp3 players with some games and a camera. All cell service is long gone.

“He’s doing alright. He’s still refusing to take any painkillers because he wants to save them for ‘something important’ or if we are forced to travel. He’s being stubborn. The dogs are keeping him company.”

“He’s just lucky we have ice right now.”

Everyone nods. Their refrigerator cranks out a couple dozen cubes a day, and that is enough to keep the swelling and pain at bay for now. It’s early fall, and winter is coming. Then there would be plenty of ice, and hopefully enough sun to keep the hydro-solar heating system going. Otherwise they’d have to go out and chop wood. The plus side to cold weather? Frozen zombies. Or “zombiecicles” as Connor has started calling them. So the only worry will be keeping themselves alive and from being raided by other survivors.

Michelle has just finished that thought when something catches her eye. Something moving from the woods. “Hey,” she whispers and nods to the treeline. “Over there.”

They all freeze. It’s a strange sight. Five people, three inside something that resembles an old fashioned handcart, being pulled by a fourth and a fifth person. They are headed to the lake. The refugees haven’t spotted the cabin yet, or the eight foot barb wire chain link fence surrounding it. They’d put the fence up themselves after raiding a Home Depot for tools, cement and something to mix it in. The fencing itself had been in a storage shed on site, another precaution they hoped they’d never need, and hadn’t fully prepared to use.

Suddenly the people pulling the cart stop and point and drop the handles, one breaking into a run across the clearing to the fence.

“Hey! Hey! Are you guys alive up there?” His voice is hopeful, desperate.

They all look at one another. There are five of them. That would put them one over food and water maximum, leaving less provisions for them and for Josh if or when he makes his way cross country.

“Stay where you are!” Andre calls out and turns to the others. “Family meeting?” he whispers. “Who wants to keep an eye on them?”

“I vote no. No way. No strangers. Not until we know about Josh.” Amanda’s grief at losing her girlfriend on her way to the cabin is still an open wound. She’s angry and raw where she used to be warm. Her sense of absurdism and sarcasm has gone AWOL and she’s on emotional lockdown. “I’ll watch them.”

Michelle wraps an arm around her sister. “You come inside. Andre, you and Connor keep an eye on them. One of you keep regular watch. Find out anything you can from them. We’ll take the meeting in fifteen minute chunks until we’ve come to a vote everyone agrees on.”

Connor and Andre nod and take up their posts.

Michelle sends out a silent plea to god or the universe or whatever power there is that can get her son home safe to her. She hasn’t even entertained the notion yet that he might not make it.

 _Please_ , she asks the sky.  _Please bring my baby back to me_.


End file.
